Environmental impact of the Nano Membrane Toilet

The energy team have been hard at work developing their understanding the environmental impact of the Nano Membrane Toilet and have produced two papers recently.

The first is a probabilistic model to investigate the energy and environmental performance of the Nano Membrane Toilet.   It highlighted the potential of a Sterling Engine within the toilet, which could even give a net power output.   It would also emit less CO2 and NOx than conventional wastewater treatment.

Anastasopoulou, A., Kolios, A., Somorin, T., Soale, A., Ying, J., Fidalgo, B.,Parker, A., Williams, L., Collins, M., MacAdam, S., Tyrrel, S., (2018) Conceptual environmental impact assessment of a novelself-sustained sanitation system incorporating a quantitative microbial riskassessment approach Science of The Total Environment, 639, 657-672

 

The second performs a “Life Cycle Assessment”, comparing the Nano Membrane Toilet to a pour flush toilet and a urine diverting dry toilet implemented hypothetically in South Africa.   The UDDT had the best environmental performance due to the reuse of urine and faeces as fertilisers.   However, when human health was considered, the Nano Membrane Toilet performed best, because of the potential for electricity generation and the reduction of NOx emissions.

Kolios,A.,  Ying, J., Somorin, T., Sowale, A.,Anastasopoulou, A., Anthony, E.J., Fidalgo, B., Parker, A., Williams, L.,Collins, M., MacAdam, S., Tyrrel, S., (2018) Probabilisticperformance assessment of complex energy process systems – The case of aself-sustained sanitation system, Energy Conversion and Management 163, 74-85